


Accidental Cult Leader

by Esperata



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Changing POV, Character Death, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Necrophilia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Insanity, Mental Instability, Multi, Organ Theft, Pre-Slash, Resurrection, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:53:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22090624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esperata/pseuds/Esperata
Summary: Everyone knows what Jervis Tetch did to his sister but things in Gotham are never as they might first appear.Or what if Jervis wasn't the sexual deviant the Gotham writers made him out to be? A rewrite of his backstory.
Relationships: Alice Tetch & Jervis Tetch, Jonathan Crane & Jervis Tetch, Jonathan Crane/Jervis Tetch
Comments: 12
Kudos: 46





	1. Alice

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Gotham Hatter HC](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/547042) by ae-arts. 



> This story would not be here without ae-arts on tumblr who offered up their thoughts on this possible backstory for our beloved Mad Hatter.

Alice had faith in Jervis. She knew that despite the difficulties he would find a way to turn things around.

They’d always been quite self-sufficient children with Jervis taking almost a parental interest in his sister from a young age. Their mother and father had each worked hard to earn enough to have both children receive a high quality education. Jervis had started school first and those were the only times Alice could remember them being apart. Then when her turn came he would walk with her there and wait for her afterwards to walk her home.

Neither managed to make many friends there. Alice herself wasn’t actively disliked but she was quiet and overlooked. When people did talk to her, either through necessity or a strange sort of curiosity, she always seemed to say the wrong thing. Not that she particularly minded the loneliness. She knew it was better than the treatment her brother received.

Jervis too was quiet but this only ever made him a target for the boys in the school. Occasionally Alice heard them yelling names at him; ‘queer’, ‘fag’, ‘poofter’. She didn’t know what they meant and Jervis always dismissed them as make believe words like jabberwocky and bandersnatch, only less articulate. It was years before she found out what they really meant.

By then, the random insults of bullies meant less and less compared to their disintegrating home life. Their father grew sick and stubbornly refused to cooperate with his doctor’s advice. The predictable result of which was that by the time he collapsed and was taken to hospital, there was nothing for them to do but make him comfortable.

His funeral was the first time Jervis wore a fancy suit. Alice fancied that it was the comments that day which prompted him to adapt his attire in future to incorporate more of his father’s formal wear. She overheard many people advising him of his new responsibilities as the man of the house, cautioning him he now had two women to maintain. Although he was in his last years of schooling so ‘maintaining’ was a bit ambitious. He did however get a part time job helping in the theatre which he could do around his study commitments.

For Alice’s part, she was determined not to be a burden and found herself taking on the role of mother even as Jervis took over the role of father. Their mother had not taken her husband’s loss at all well. Although she managed to go out and fulfil her work commitments, she now did so with a bottle of vodka tucked in her bag. Alice took to starting dinner herself when she got home from school knowing that by the time her mother got in she’d be fixed on a downward slide to oblivion.

The family savings dropped considerably as the school fees still needed paying along with their mortgage, food and bills. Jervis contributed but Alice knew he saved a little from his wages. At the time she’d felt a faint hint of betrayal at the action. It wasn’t until later she’d understood his forethought.

It was the day of her graduation that everything changed for them. She’d been proud of herself that day and happy to see Jervis sitting in the crowds watching her receive her certificate. Only he knew how much of her last year had been self-taught given the frequency she’d skipped classes. A part of her was disappointed her mother hadn’t shown up but overall she was relieved. The idea of everyone seeing her drunken state was horrifying. And she was pleased too because it was the last time Jervis would walk her home from school, as he had done so many times, and she wanted to savour it.

It wasn’t until they got home that they realised that was the last time anything normal would be happening for a while.

Jervis had gone to change for his evening work and Alice was starting on dinner when a knock at the door interrupted their lives. A tow truck was parked outside and the driver needed someone to confirm he was delivering the car to the right address. For one giddy moment, Alice thought he meant a new car – as in a present – and then she saw it. It was undeniably her mother’s car although crumpled hideously.

She remembered asking what had happened to the driver, in a calm voice that didn’t sound like it could be her at all, and hearing him say no-one told him that - but how she acted the next few minutes she honestly couldn’t say. She must have confirmed sufficiently for the driver because he unloaded it and left.

Jervis found her still standing in the hallway when he came back downstairs. Before he could ask though, the phone rang and everything kicked off.

From the stillness of the beginning, the rest passed in a whirlwind of confused memories. The rush to the hospital, talking with police, the identifying of their mother. Another funeral to attend but this time followed by a house sale and furniture auction until the pair were left with practically nothing to their name. Or almost nothing. Jervis had two aces up his sleeve still. One was the money he’d put aside weekly for their own use. It was pretty much all they had now. The second was a letter from a businessman in Gotham.

Jervis had known he’d need to do better than his work at the theatre if he was to support his family and had personally written to a number of prominent businessmen, asking for consideration for any position they thought they could offer. He’d received one promising reply: from Thomas Wayne in Gotham. So without further consideration, Jervis bought him and Alice two coach tickets to the city and set off with a view to seeing if their luck would change there.

Alice didn’t think twice about going with him. She knew Jervis would always look out for her. He was the only family she had left and more importantly, was the only person in her life who had never, and she knew _would_ never, hurt her.


	2. Doug

Doug always enjoyed this part of the job. He knew Patti preferred the satisfaction that came with a cleanly executed assignment but he preferred to take pleasure in the little things. Currently that meant buying a few desserts to slip the kids’ drugs into, with a couple of extra for him and his partner. After selecting four he quickly dosed two and head back to the little table, already smiling in anticipation of his tasty treat.

This pair were a bit outside their usual remit, being older and less obviously abandoned, but Patti had been tempted nonetheless. It was no secret to him that she wanted to prove they were capable of more than rounding up the trash. The odd pair walking through their patch, clearly lost, would be a prime catch if they were in fact as unattended as they seemed. Patti had decided therefore to be a little more cautious before making any sort of move and to that end she’d offered to buy them dinner, supposedly with the sole hope of being good Samaritans.

Naturally everyone knew you got nothing for nothing though so the siblings had been wary. It was then that Patti had faux reluctantly admitted she would like to talk to them about her religious order, at which point they’d conceded to the deal. It always amused him how kids always fell for that line. They thought they were so smart to know to expect a catch but none of them ever seemed to realise adults would know to have one ready prepared to mask their true intentions. Although these two were out of towners and even less prepared for deceit than the street urchins.

Patti had put on her very best maternal countenance and asked with concern why they were out on the streets alone, at which point the whole sorry sob story came out. Truth to tell Doug hadn’t paid much attention to most of it. He’d picked out the important points as far as they were concerned. Their parents were dead and they’d come to the city hoping to meet Thomas Wayne only to find upon their arrival that the city was in uproar due to his murder. With nowhere else to go and no-one else to turn to they were hoping for a miracle.

This had segued nicely into Patti’s rehearsed spiel about a church focused on helping the destitute of the city and Doug had understood immediately these two were suitable for collection ie there was nobody to care if they conveniently disappeared. So he’d gone to get the sweets that would be the kiss of death for these particular lost children. Bringing them back to the table he eyed the gratefully smiling pair with a professional eye.

Where most of the kids they usually dealt with looked like they were probably malnourished or under developed in some way, these two looked in prime health. It was undeniable that the Dollmaker would be pleased with such provisions if they could obtain them without any damage. Maybe they would end up moving up their particular career ladder. And maybe that would mean more operations like this involving fully funded dinners.

He smiled happily as he handed out the pastries. Patti smiled back at him, also clearly pleased with how the current job was panning out. The youngsters accepted their treats without hesitation and eagerly bit into them.

“It really is most kind of you,” the boy said again. “My sister and I were beginning to despair.”

“I wasn’t,” she piped up. “I knew you’d find us something.”

He turned to smile at her only to be hit by an obvious wave of vertigo.

“Oh,” he murmured softly, a frown pulling at his brow.

“Jervis?” his sister enquired nervously, her head also nodding suddenly.

He reached his hand awkwardly across to grip hers, clearly not understanding she was feeling the same light headedness.

“It’s fine Alice. I’m just… tired…”

As his head dropped quite abruptly towards the table, and she fell sideways towards him, Patti took up the conversation as if nothing were amiss.

“Of course you must both be exhausted! How remiss of us. Doug? We better get these young ones to their beds.”

He followed her cue and slid out to haul the boy into his arms. The girl slumped onto the bench and Patti managed to get her arms under her to lift her as well. Traipsing out of the diner Doug saw her give a conspiratorial glance to the waitress, as if to say; ‘the things we do for our children’. Luckily no-one was about on the street to see them slide their unresponsive cargo into the back of their van.

Once safely settled in the front again and on their way, Doug found himself chuckling.

“The boss should be pleased with these two.”

“Yes. I imagine there’ll be a waiting list for the girl already.”

“There more a shortage of female body parts?”

She cast him a disbelieving look.

“I meant, men will be wanting to enjoy her unresisting body,” she clarified pointedly.

“How’d you know she’ll be unresisting? She going to be drugged?”

“No.” Patti rolled her eyes. “She’ll be _dead_. There’s quite a market for that sort of fetish though.”

“Really?” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Freaky.”

“Yes, well, it brings in extra funding,” she explained casually. “And when she gets too… ripe… for that market, she can always be passed for Doctor Strange to try his revival procedure on.”

Doug frowned to himself as he stared out the window, considering that.

“I’m sure that’s not his real name,” he eventually declared.

“Probably not,” Patti agreed. “But that hardly matters does it?”

“Do you really think he can bring back the dead?”

“The boss thinks his research is worth supporting so he must think so. That’s good enough for me.”

“Do you think the boy will end up there as well?”

“Maybe. I think the Dollmaker will want to harvest those eyes of his though.”

“You know a lot about this don’t you?”

The gaze she leveled at him this time was highly suspicious.

“I make a point to know what the boss wants. A couple of quality items like this will do well but we still need to get him our quota of kids.”

“In this town,” Doug reminded her, “that is not going to be a problem.”


	3. Hugo

Sometimes it took an awful lot of effort to achieve what looked like very little, to an outsider’s perspective anyway, and Hugo Strange had spent considerable time attending to the girl. The boy by comparison hadn’t needed much to correct his damage although it was easier when you recalled men weren’t judged so much by their appearance. A little degradation that could be attributable to aging would pass unnoticed on him. The few enhancements he had added would likewise mean it was likely the boy would draw more praise than the sister. However Doctor Strange would always know how special she was.

When he had received the two corpses Miss Peabody had declared the girl to be beyond his talents. He had appreciated how she might have come to such a conclusion. The skin was damaged in several places, undoubtedly from injuries received after death, and the blood had obviously been allowed to degrade and leak to where it could pool in cavities it shouldn’t have been in. Still, she didn’t have his vision and he knew exactly how to rectify the damage.

It had taken pain staking diligent work to clean out her entire cardiovascular system, repairing the broken arteries and veins to allow fresh blood to flow through. The blood itself he was particularly proud of. It had been the work of many months experimentation and he was thrilled to have such a perfect subject to play host to it. Although before her revival he needed to create her programming so that she’d be a perfect carrier.

She had to go under the radar for maximum exposure to take place. Unremarkable and outwardly forgettable. If he could give her a history to prompt a desire to stay hidden it would be ideal.

A happy coincidence of thought gave him his brainwave for both her and her brother. He was browsing her file wondering about whether or not to repair her brutalised reproductive system when the thought came to him. The perfect way to give her an explanation for its damaged state and to give both her and her brother a strong enough impulse for the roles they needed to play.

Finding a suitable story wasn’t too hard after that especially with the coincidence of her name. Everyone knew Lewis Carroll had written his famous story with his depraved sexual urges at the forefront of his mind. What better way to imprint a healthy fear in an Alice’s mind while simultaneously providing a host of characters to choose from for her brother, all available to seek their titular character to complete their Wonderland.

Naturally he released her first, having brain washed her into believing her brother was responsible for her clear history of rape. He would give her time to go to ground before sending him in pursuit. The work on Jervis was much more of a cosmetic nature. A new pair of eyes, a little neurosurgery and a few touch ups to the lungs and larynx. Minor compared to some, suggesting he’d been earmarked for Strange’s treatment early. Probably they’d kept him while his sister was being violated, perhaps removing his eyes as a kindness so he wouldn’t see what was being done. Maybe they’d thought the familial relationship would aid his revival process. If so he thought they were likely right.

Bringing him back to life had been easy enough and to his delight he found that, even though he struggled to remember his own name, his sister’s was still at the forefront of his mind. From there it was easy to twist those thoughts to fit his own scheme. Bombarding Jervis with a false history and interspersing it with recitals from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Doctor Strange allowed a little leeway in the procedure to start with, curious to see whether their patient would pick out his own character. If there was any natural resonance then it would be easier to guide him that way rather than force a different perspective on him. Helpfully his instinctive adoption of the Mad Hatter as a persona was very easy to incorporate into their plans.

Although Strange had let Alice go with a bare minimum of background, the better to make her confused and panicky, he spent longer grooming Jervis on how to deal with society. Whereas she was only required to act as a Typhoid Mary, Jervis’ unique ability required him to get close and colloquial with people. He needed to be able to mingle in polite, preferably influential, society if he was to be truly effective.

There was no doubt in the doctor’s mind that Jervis would co-opt anybody he encountered in his search for his sister, effectively creating a weakness in his wake as people in positions of power were diverted to his cause. It should be interesting to observe such a phenomenon.

He wondered also what might happen if they did eventually reunite. It would be pleasing to think his treatment would be effective enough to hold in that situation but he was practical enough to understand the likelihood that it would not. From all accounts, their affection for each other had been particularly deep, trusting and protective. While he had used this to his advantage in creating the false memories, he was all too aware that it didn’t change the underlying emotions. Currently Jervis was obsessed with possessing Alice, an easy step to provoke from protective, and Alice’s trust had been rewired as fearful submission. Yet if they spent any time together – if they were able to actually talk and interact in a natural environment – then the probability was good that their natural personalities would resurface and obliterate his work.

It was something he would need to work on. How he could form a more lasting impression upon his creations so they would be true to his vision forever, not just until time wore it away. Ideas bubbled for improvements and all he needed were new test subjects to experiment upon. Thankfully, in this city, there was always a ready supply of bodies available. Enough even to cater to Hugo Strange’s fertile imagination.

Even as he turned his focus to the next project though, he spared a thought for his progeny already out in the world. They were going to make him proud. He knew they were.


	4. Jervis

At this point Jervis would have appreciated the doctor’s figuring out what was happening inside his head. Trite as it might sound, it truly seemed like a topsy-turvy world of a mad mathematician’s creation. Whenever he tried to follow a memory back, as he was required to do during his therapy sessions, he inevitably found himself somewhere entirely unexpected that bore no relation to the predictable cause and effect scenario they were trying to discover.

And then there were gaping holes that were appearing with ever increasing frequency. To begin with he’d dismissed it as a product of grief. Alice had been ripped from him, of course he was going to be mentally and emotionally disturbed. And naturally her loss had left a void in his life. She had been the central focus of his thoughts for…well, forever really. The key figure around which his entire world revolved.

Revenge had been an adequate crutch to prevent him completely spiralling but gradually he found himself at a loose end, feeling numb and disconnected from everything around him. Nothing fit right. He had no memories associated with any place he visited, even if he knew he should. Or else he found himself experiencing a sense of déjà vu where there could be no possible reason for him too.

No wonder people called him mad and threw him in Arkham but in truth he couldn’t argue with them. A part of him was even grateful that he might have the chance to regain control of his own mind. What irony that he could so easily control everyone else but not his own consciousness.

However the treatment there left quite a lot to be desired. It left him increasingly frustrated as the remembrances he did manage to recall were dismissed as only another construct of his twisted mind. Yet they felt so vivid to him. Far more so in fact that the factual knowledge he had of his life. He knew what he’d done to Alice. It was a matter of public record. And he could feel that deep well of love even now for her. However the actual acts he’d committed? There was a blank when he tried to recollect those memories.

His doctor concluded he was deliberately holding them back and subjected him to more vigorous procedures to bring them into the light, citing a need to face them before he could move on. Needless to say this didn’t exactly produce the hoped for result. Jervis disassociated more completely from his past self but at least he was able then to move on and fix his attention onto the future. If the past hurt then he simply would no longer think on it.

That life was gone anyway and mostly if he left the memories alone, then they would leave him alone. And luckily he had companions with a plan to keep him occupied. Jerome was always bubbling with ideas and life was never dull with him around. In truth there was generally very little time to stop and think while they enacted their games, a fact for which Jervis was truly grateful.

Jonathan was distinctly different. Where Jerome was extroverted, to the point of seeming to exist entirely outside himself, Jonathan gave the clear impression of knowing every dark pathway of his mind and subconscious. He watched the world from deep inside that shadowy place and Jervis sensed he even saw into other people’s souls. Perhaps that’s why he was drawn to him.

There was a certain comfort in the Scarecrow’s company. He asked nothing of Jervis and merely accepted his presence with him as if it were natural. While together, Jervis felt conversely safe enough to let go of all concerns about his past or future. It was about the only time he could simply exist in the present with any calm.

Where Jervis felt an unnatural separation between his thoughts and himself, having very little he was able to successfully tally between reality and memory, and consequently barely expecting his actions to bear relatable consequences, Jonathan acted as a grounding force. In some way Jervis more intuited than understood, Scarecrow was able to translate the two normally conflicting spheres of the Mad Hatter’s reality.

Initially he’d rather wondered that someone so young could have such an abundance of hard won experience in the area of disillusionment but Jonathan had a torturous lot packed into a short time. Contrariwise, he himself had a sparsity of lessons learnt in his supposedly longer years. He thought perhaps the missing gaps might contain those teachings but if so they were lost to him.

If anything, he brought the childish playfulness and immaturity to their interactions while Jonathan played the part of exasperated – yet amused, if Jervis knew him at all – accomplice to his games.

But still, in the darkness of the lonely nights, it grated. Like prodding the hole of a missing tooth, he couldn’t ignore the pieces misplaced from his memory. Too often he would awaken from a dream where he had been walking his sister to school, or else holding Alice’s hand to guide her safely in the strange city, and hearing her confidently assuring him she knew he’d keep her safe. Everyone told him this was a lie of his own imagining but it persisted in his heart and soul nonetheless.

On rarer occasions he would have other dreams. Less broken memories and more akin to fantasies. These he knew were standard fare for sexually active individuals but still they confused him. According to everyone, his preference ran towards incest with his sister. So why were his wet dreams fixated on male bodies pressing against him? It made no sense to him and he was beginning to hate the growing realisation that perhaps he _was_ mad.

Although he felt sincerely that he had a core of logic and rationality to himself, even if it was one no-one else could understand, he had to admit that if he couldn’t fathom his own desires then maybe the majority were right. The crisis point would come soon he feared, where he would either lose his sanity entirely or finally uncover the truth from wherever it had been buried.

He could only pray that didn’t leave him even more broken and vulnerable.


	5. Jonathan

The reasoning was perfectly sound. Jonathan liked Jervis and would not have suggested such a solution if he had not been convinced it was the best thing to do. He had been freed by his own exposure to fear toxin. Surely it was not ridiculous to believe such an experience would unshackle Jervis’ mind enough to shake loose any and all barriers he had in his brain?

Jervis had been growing increasingly frustrated and agitated at his own inconsistent memories. The man either seemed to have a double dose of experiences for the same period or none at all. His mind’s unreliability was gradually worrying him more and more until Jonathan had finally suggested they simply liberate his consciousness from reality entirely for a while and then let it form its own reconnections. The human equivalent of switching things off and then on again. A mental reset.

Perhaps it was a sign of how concerned Jervis truly was that he agreed to the scheme without any argument. A tiny part of Jonathan hoped it merely reflected the other’s man’s confidence in him. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t interested in seeing what effect the fear gas had on the Mad Hatter but also he would be disappointed if it actually permanently damaged his friend.

The man was one of the only people to treat Jonathan with any respect. He treated him as an equal and was probably the only person Jonathan felt in any way comfortable around. It was also nice to have a companion willing to shield you from unwanted human interaction. Jervis had a natural gift for carrying a conversation himself and seemed utterly content for Jonathan to simply exist with him in a non-judgmental silence. He’d grown surprisingly used to having him there.

So it was with a degree of caution that Jonathan prepared to administer Jervis’ treatment. The room was locked with nothing conceivably dangerous inside, besides his toxin, and Jonathan had made sure they would not be interrupted for the whole night. Jervis had opted to sit cross-legged on a cushion to begin with and Jonathan knelt in front of him briefly to assess his condition before beginning. While his pulse was naturally elevated and his eyes wider than normal overall Jervis remained calm and accepting of their decision.

With no further fanfare, Scarecrow injected a carefully calculated dose right into the vein of Jervis’ arm. They didn’t have to wait long for the first reaction. Jervis flinched, although from what was unclear, and then his eyes grew ever wider as he stared at some vision Jonathan couldn’t see.

“Alice?”

His voice was hesitant and trembling. Jonathan felt himself being drawn closer with fascination before everything suddenly exploded in a flurry of flailing arms and screaming. Jervis lurched himself backwards, clearly terrified by the apparition ( _of his sister, Scarecrow noted_ ) and desperate to escape.

“No! No, no, no! It wasn’t me! I swear I didn’t!”

“Didn’t what?” Jonathan heard himself ask, in the Scarecrow’s dry voice. “Didn’t kill her?”

“No!” Jervis wailed, hands pressed forcefully over his eyes. “I wanted to protect her!” He lowered his hands but his wild stare ignored Jonathan to focus on his other accuser. “I wanted to protect you. They made me watch! Then… oh god! My eyes!”

Jonathan knelt before him and forced his hands from his face so he had to meet the Scarecrow’s stare.

“What about your eyes? Tell me!”

“They took them,” he whimpered. His hands twisted about until they were clasping at Jonathan’s shirt. “They made me watch…” his gaze drifted to look past him again and Scarecrow roughly shook him to refocus his attention. The frantic eyes refixed themselves on him, seeing and yet not seeing. “They cut me up… I can feel the blade…”

Breathing in fast pants now, Jervis dropped his gaze as if checking his body was there and intact. Apparently what he saw didn’t reassure him any and he began to squirm, seeking to escape the hands holding him. Jonathan however wasn’t willing to let him go yet.

Then the man went eerily still, just blinking slowly as he inhaled and exhaled slowly and deeply. It sent a tendril of unease through Jonathan’s stomach and he softened his hold.

“Jervis?”

The sound of his name drew his eyes back to his but they were still looking somewhere else. It was as if the man’s body was still here but his mind was fully engaged somewhere else. Then he swallowed harshly.

“Darkness. Coldness. Emptiness. All alone. Nothingness. Desolation.” A full body shiver shook him and, in a moment of concern he didn’t stop to analyse, Jonathan pulled him close and hugged him tightly.

“Darkness,” Jervis repeated, his hands once again regaining their strength to clutch at the body grounding him back in this world. “So cold and alone. Death.” He shivered again and pressed his face into the rough cloth before him before whispering. “I was dead, Jonathan. I know I was.”

There was little Jonathan could say to that. He had no platitudes to offer. No trite clichés to express. It was quite likely Jervis had died and been brought back by the doctors at Indian Hill. If so it would also explain the false memories, recreating his life so he would serve some experimental purpose of theirs. So instead he turned the conversation back.

“Do you remember what happened to Alice?”

“I didn’t hurt her! I never would have hurt her! They let others… do things. They made me watch…”

His hands instinctively moved towards his eyes again but Jonathan pressed them closer together to catch them between them.

“You know the truth now,” he offered. “The reason your memories have been confused. They were overlaid with lies.”

“So many lies. Everybody lying to themselves, lying to others. How’s anybody supposed to make any sense of it all?”

“We find our own truths.” Jonathan remembered his father’s obsessive fixation following his mother’s death. “We construct our own reality.”

“Yes, yes,” Jervis murmured against him. “Reality is an obstacle to hallucination, you know. And a wonderland is so much better without society’s decrees.”

A silence fell between them, as comfortable as ever, which surprised Jonathan as he was not usually relaxed in such close proximity to someone. He maintained the embrace vaguely aware he was still awaiting something.

“I miss Alice.”

Jonathan let out a sigh, feeling the damp seeping into his shirt now. Without realising, he’d somehow known this would be the natural conclusion for their experiment. He settled in to wait out the tears.


	6. Jim

James Gordon let out an exasperated sigh, partly at his partner, who had just decided they simply had to stop for snacks, abandoning him in the patrol car, and partly at their giggling passenger.

“I don’t know what you’re laughing about.” He angled the rear mirror to glance back at him. “You’re going back to Arkham for good this time.”

“You still think I need a cure? I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“You’re sick Jervis. You’ve murdered people. You’ve raped-”

“I’ve done no such thing! Your reality is wanting!”

“Innocent people have died because of you.”

“We’re all mad here detective.” Jervis grinned wide. “You think the world is logical when actually it’s nonsensical.”

Gordon gave up on reasoning with him and turned his attention back out the window to watch Bullock queuing in the coffee shop. There might have been a time once when he could talk rationally with Jervis Tetch but that had long since passed. He was more lost in Wonderland than ever these days and Jim could only hope the doctors would have more luck reaching him.

On the backseat Jervis began to hum a tune and Jim grit his teeth. Against his stern wishes, his mind was already searching for the words. It was a familiar ditty that he could half recall from his childhood. Something about cows sleeping? And there was a lively chorus he remembered now. How did it go?

The words flooded into his mind seconds before Jervis finished his first verse and he instinctively flattened himself onto the car seats. Seconds later a fear gas canister burst through the window. He scrambled at the door handle and practically rolled himself out, keeping under the swirling cloud of toxin. Scrambling for the front of the car he was able to see his attacker now on the far side.

Jervis had looped his handcuffed arms wrapped around Crane’s narrow shoulders and was happily singing, despite the tendrils of gas lingering about him.

“My dingle dangle Scarecrow, with a flippy floppy hat. I can shake my hands like this, I can shake my feet like that.”

For his own part, Scarecrow seemed oblivious to his giggling partner and was peering intently into the vehicle, obviously looking for Detective Gordon. It gave Jim a precious few seconds to strategise. That was until his own partner launched into the fray.

“Hey! You’re under arrest nutjob!”

Bullets pinged off the car’s metal work as Harvey abandoned his snacks in favour of firing on their escaping prisoner and his accomplice. Both Crane and Jim looked towards him in annoyance, which meant Scarecrow now noticed where his original victim had hidden. For a brief second, Jim regretted leaving the car without first seizing his own firearm.

Luckily for him, Jonathan clearly decided the odds were no longer in their favour and he darted away, pulling Jervis along with him and throwing another fear gas grenade over his shoulder. Jim hastily stumbled to his feet and ran over to Harvey, leaving their patrol car alone in its haze of hallucinogenic mist. Echoing through to them he could still hear the Mad Hatter’s manic laughter.

They stood in aggrieved silence a moment before Bullock bent down to retrieve his bag of doughnuts and offered one to Jim.

“What is it about the crazies in this city that they always come in pairs? I thought it was bad enough when Penguin and Nygma hooked up. Now Tetch and Crane?”

“Penguin and Ed are one thing,” Jim countered. “This match up isn’t healthy at all. Tetch is delusional for a start. And manipulative as hell. Mark my words, it will all fall apart before long and we’ll be left picking up the bloody pieces.”

Casting a final authoritative look to Harvey he then strode over to begin fanning the clouds away so he could reach their radio.

“I don’t know,” Bullock opined as he followed at a safe distance. “Seems to me that Scarecrow character won’t be subject to that weird ass hypnotism thing he does. I’d say Tetch might just have met his match.”

Jim hesitated as he realised Tetch hadn’t been unduly bothered by the fear gas either, although he undoubtedly must have breathed some of it in. Perhaps the pair had developed some sort of immunity between them. He shook his head in mild disbelief and glanced again at Bullock.

“Maybe we should take it as a positive sign,” he offered. “If they still have the capacity to love then surely they can still be redeemed.”

Bullock gave him a disbelieving stare all of his own.

“Feeling something for one person don’t say anything other than that they got feelings for that one person. I mean, look at Penguin. He’s been head over heels for Riddler for years. It ain’t stopped him from being a psychopathic, murderous piece of work.”

“True,” Jim conceded before flashing a smile. “But I still say it shows there’s good in them somewhere.”

“Being a good person doesn’t equate with being able to love someone. If it did, then most of the force would be royally screwed. Yours truly included.”

Throwing up his hands in defeat, Jim couldn’t help but throw in one final rejoinder.

“Will you just let me have one glimmer of hope? And at least they’re not breeding if they stick with the pairs we’ve got.”

A warning finger was held up towards him.

“Not yet.”

The idea coaxed a laugh out of him for its ridiculousness before a memory flashed into his mind of Oswald, escorting a young boy about fashioned as a miniature Cobblepot. With a worried flicker, his eyes glanced across to where their current escapees had probably headed. Even as he finally felt secure enough to reach into the car for the radio, he couldn’t stop his mind from imagining.

What if this was only the first wave of costumed criminals to haunt Gotham? Would Penguin find himself an heir to raise to continue his legacy? What about the Mad Hatter with his continuing obsession with finding a new Alice? Could he ever succeed in grooming a girl to take on the role?

Shaking the thoughts away Gordon radioed in. It didn’t matter right now. All he needed to focus on was bringing the current crop of crooks to justice.

Tomorrow’s problems could wait another day.


End file.
